Re: Do I even need a Links Page?

At 02:03 AM 8/22/98 -0700, seacow wrote:
>It's true that an author put a lot of
>effort into a docuent, but you could offer your visitors much more by
>showing them what else is out there.  Just because the visitor goes to
>another site doesn't mean that they won't stick around to see yours.

Unless yours stinks (technical term for "doesn't supply the information
that a potential viewer/customer might need"); in which case you'd need to
employ all the tricks you know for keeping your audience captive, including
no links out!

Seriously, perhaps it all comes down to "Am I willing to take the
responsibility of providing a broad body of information targetted to my
audience so that they don't need to go elsewhere?" vs something more like
"I will assume my audience has gotten the proper information and has made
the decision to come here to buy." For the first scenario, this is not only
good customer service but also a killer way to get people to come to your
site over and over again... and perhaps you wouldn't need a lot of links
elsewhere. For the second, if you aren't willing to provide indepth
ancillary information about whatever the subject of your page is... I think
it's just good sense to link to others who will do so.

Maybe yours is the best widget around, but if people don't know about your
widgets, they won't even get to that online widget order form. You can hope
a non-competitor has set up a site raving about YOUR widgets... or go back
to option A and take matters into your own hands, lest a customer ditch
your site for a more informative one where they can just *happen* to pick
up the other company's widgets too.

Not so cut-and-dried for a non-transactional model but I think the same
basic theory applies: the less solid meaty *relevant* info your site has,
the more you probably need those links...


Only in my opinion, of course, which isn't necessarily *humble* but at
least open to debate. ;)




Michelle L. Kinsey-Clinton
"Ignorance is bliss." -- N. Ruby, 1998, reprinted by permission.

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